To those who are not sure you can feed a family for less than £100 a week

[Metoodear]

I posted a few pictures on the other shopping conversation of the food I cooked as people simply refused to belive you can weekly shop for less than £100 and not just eat pasta all week

Just come back from shopping and just wanted to show you my list and weekly plan Monday is not on their because I already have the dinner we are having salmon baby roasted potatoes and squash wedges with green beans

I have 3 kids and a cat no less Sp 5 of us in total this list includes stuff for lunch as well for me and husband

I it can be done if you don’t allow grazing and make a meal plan the

Well my children are in reception so I am afraid mine do so I can’t count on what I don’t have to pay out

We already know any way people don’t have it that your not eating grule of your not spending at leat £200 a week

And I have already said what we’re having the other days as we already have those bits

This clearly shows that people who don’t spend loads are not eating grule or pasta every day but hay ho the focus is on the lack of coco pops and snacks

Unless their is something very wrong most people have food left over from the last weeks shop that can be used the following week no one has bare cupboards on Friday and has to to a complete food shop from scratch

Food that has been bought and paid for.

Well my children are in reception so I am afraid mine do so I can’t count on what I don’t have to pay out

You are aware children grow up?

I think what this doesn't account for as well, is that people have a life and life isn't perfect. What I mean is that children, teenagers in particular, will sometimes want a treat, snacks, a takeaway. Sometimes people are sick and don't want to/can't cook everything from scratch or drive 10 miles further to the cheaper supermarket, or have 3 friends round for dinner, or have forgotten their milk and bread has run out and have to buy it at 2 pounds a pop from the local store...so there your budget goes immediately out of the window.

I was thrilled to have spent less than £30 cash a week this month for 2 adults, one child. That includes everything so cleaning stuff and pet food.

It helped that I had nearly £50 of vouchers and for some reason had a bit of a daft moment and ordered double the amount of cat food last month.

OP- what you are not quite understanding is that the stuff you already have - the salmon, the chicken etc, all have to be included in the budget if you are saying you can feed a family for a week with it - do you get that now?

There is no way you could feed a family that size with just the stuff you have listed. You would need to include stuff you have already bought, plus stuff you buy as a top up during the week,such as more bread etc

School meals are not free for most people.

But if it’s not been eaten you don’t include that in the next weeks shop that would be bizarre

I assume you have say mince in your Freezer so if your shop last week cost you 200

And you didn’t eat the mice then you have mine this week and your shop cost you 198 it’s not any more expensive because your having last weeks mince

You realise you're actually disproving the point you're trying to make don't you?

yeah I can do a shop for £100 or under but I don't think your making your point clear and as others said school dinners are not free unless you have a child in infants or on certain benefits .

That is what I would call a top up shop. It isn't going to feed a family for a week. It's to add to whatever you already have in your freezer and cupboards.

I'm not quite sure what your point is, lots of people have pointed out that you havn't produced a meal plan and bought the ingredients for 7 days. If you did a meal plan (breakfast/lunch/dinner) and a list of accompanying ingredients and prices that would make so much more sense. But you've just shown us a random receipt and a list of 4 dinners?

That amount of fruit would be gone in a day or two. Do you but apples/bananas? As an aside - there is an awful lot of plastic in your fruit, it's such an expensive and wasteful way to buy fruit. Why not just buy one whole melon? It would be equivalent in fruit terms to what you have there, cheaper and no plastic. 😁

10 eggs for 89p - are those battery farmed?

I do agree with you, FWIW, it's definitely possible to feed a family on less than £100 per week. We eat less meat than many. I cook from scratch when I can as we have little money but more time as I'm not working at present.

Home grown bean sprouts (in sprouting jars, or a regular large jar with a piece or cloth over the top held by an elastic band) are a cheap way of bulking up salad & stir-fries. More info here if you're interested. Many types of dried pulses are suitable for sprouting, & can be bought very cheaply.

Also - eat less snacks. Unnecessary unless you're a toddler. DD stopped getting snacks when she was 2. She's extremely healthy, tall, rarely ill, & massively energetic.

I might have a few bits in the freezer or cupboard but when I do a shop my fridge is normally bear and I'm out of all fresh fruit/veg apart from a few questionable looking pieces. I have no meat etc left. Your post is badly thought out, sorry OP!

Op I don't beleive you're serious.

I've fed my family for nothing today, all the food was bought yesterday

My house cost me nothing, as I bought it years ago.

Of course it’s possible. Joint of beef for £15. Chicken £5 gammon joint £5. Bag of potatoes £2.50. Bag of pasta 75p. Porridge oats 2.50. 3xtinned tomato’s. 2.50. Chickpeas, lentils cheep. Dozen eggs, cheese. Some bread and butter. Frozen veg bag of salad. Cordial. Yoghurt multibah of crisps. Would come to no more than £75.

Gruel. It's gruel.

Schools meals are far from free for older kids.

LOL.

This is the kind of crap that some celebrity chefs do when they say you can cook a family meal for say 89p per person. They conveniently forgot that all those storecupboard staples add up to a lot of money. When I moved a couple of years ago I rebought all my spices and condiments etc rather than take opened jars and it cost a fortune!

I think it all depends on where you shop and the time you shop. Meal planning and not shopping when hungry helps. Op you need to factor in the cost of what you already have in though as this stuff isn't free. Add that and you have the total cost per week.

Mrsella this is the second thread I have seen where you have been extremely rude. Vile? Really? What do you eat then?

What an odd thread, my house has so much food it's like a food bank, it all cost money though, it's not free just because I've had it in stock for a while

Here's my meal plan for feeding a family for under £100 p/w.

Breakfasts - Aldi wheat and blueberry things (they look like shredded wheats - I CBA to go into the kitchen to find out what they're actually called.

Lunch - DD1 - £12.50 on her pre-pay account with the school
Lunch - DD2 - Aldi's halzenut and chocolate spread on white bread, monster munch (from Iceland which is next door to Aldi), apple, Aldi squeezy yoghurt, Aldi fruitshoot, Aldi's version of Jaffa cakes x 3.
Lunch me - Aldi Frozen sauasges or an egg in two slices of bread, unless I am at work where I eat free or college, where surprisingly I also eat free. I'm at college p/t - mostly mornings - I get £3 a day and a voucher for a free breakfast. I have to pay £12.50 a week for DD1 who is in school full time. This makes no sense to me.
Lunch dog - free meat scraps from work

Dinners

Salmon fillet, baby new potatos in mint and butter sauce, baby carrots, peas, broccoli.

Pizza (Aldi stuffed crust), crispy chicken strips (Iceland - BBQ flavour), Spicy wedges (Aldi), coleslaw (Aldi)

Veggi Chilli and rice (made with Aldi chillli sauce and aldi tinned pulses)

Chicken stir fry (if and only if the dates on Aldi's stir fry veg are long enough to last until Sat when we don't have DD2 who does not like stirfry) or Aldi frozen duck with pancakes, cucumber strips and Iceland mini kofta kebabs.

The rest of the time we eat dinner at family or eat from the tin cupboard or freezer. Sadly, my freezer does not magically produce food, I have to buy it. I generally buy chicken nuggets, an extra pizza, some pastries (Iceland Gregg's range if they are on offer, whatever Aldi has of they're not), tins of beans, hotdogs and spaghetti, frozen sausages, extra yoghurts and apples, Aldi's version of nutrigrain bars and bananas.

Bought from Aldi and Iceland this all comes to around £50 including dog food, sanitary wear and cleaning products but not toiletries which I get from a beauty supply store with my trade card.

Bearhunter's shopping list is more realistic and similar to mine without as much meat but with vegetarian sausages and more pulses.

Your children are in Reception. My kids are in secondary and all of them eat more than me.

Your shopping list has no toiletries or household products. My shop has stuff like toilet paper, dishwasher tablets, hairspray, deodorant...

I cook for 5 ( one 2year old and a 4year old and a 10yesr old) for about 65-80 a week at Tesco. I do meal plan and includes vegetables and fruit.

I shop at Aldi but cannot get our combined weekly spend to less than about £120.00 for the 5 of us. Fruit alone costs a fortune.

Free school meals and feeding young kids will make it pretty straight forward, feeding a couple of sporty teens with a hell of an appetite and no entitlement to freebies makes £100 pw a little less doable.

Lunch - DD2 - Aldi's halzenut and chocolate spread on white bread, monster munch (from Iceland which is next door to Aldi), apple, Aldi squeezy yoghurt, Aldi fruitshoot, Aldi's version of Jaffa cakes x 3.

No offense but why doesnt DD2 get school lunch like her sister? That's a shockingly bad lunch.